By now, most of us know that Republican Donald Trump has won the US election and will become the 47th President of the United States.

While we’ve all had over a week now to accept the results, many are still asking, “How did this happen?”

“I am a little shocked that he won every swing state,” said Fanshawe politics professor, Glen Morgan. “I thought [Kamala] Harris might have carried something like Michigan or Wisconsin. But yeah, no, I mean…it is what it is at this point.”

This year’s election was unique in many ways, with a convicted felon running as a candidate and ultimately winning the election, but another defining aspect was the use of digital media during campaigns, especially long-form media like podcasts.

“The digital media ecosystem has sorted its audience into niche interest categories and demographic cohorts,” Fanshawe political science professor, Matt Ferrell said in a media release. “This audience fragmentation allows political campaigns to reach potential voters through targeted digital advertising and podcast appearances. It’s an unprecedented ability to micro-target undecided voters, especially in competitive swing states where a few thousand votes could be decisive.” 

Both Harris and Trump were on podcasts during their campaigns. Most notably, Harris was on Call Her Daddy, the second-most popular podcast on Spotify in 2023, while Trump was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) Podcast, where his episode currently has 50 million views on YouTube.

Morgan is not convinced the podcast appearance really had any effect on the outcome of the election.

“Joe Rogan is a talented provocateur, to put it bluntly, and he knows who his audience is, and he knows how to play to that audience,” Morgan continued. “The postmortem for Kamala’s campaign is, you know, ‘She should have gone on Rogan,’ but I don’t know if that would have helped her.”

Morgan pointed to Rogan’s target audience of mostly young, white males, who he said likely would not have gravitated to her message either way.

“There may have been a little bit of respect that she was able to go into the lion’s den, so to speak,” Morgan said. “Podcasts are interesting but always remember that the podcast has sponsorship, and the people are making them to make money. It may be a form of information, but it’s also a form of entertainment.”

When asked if Trump being on the JRE podcast had an impact on the election, as Rogan’s demographic is already mostly comprised of Trump supporters, Morgan said it was a turn-out election.

“I think Trump being on Rogan just solidified the desire of his people to go out,” Morgan said. “I’m going to put it bluntly. I’m not sure it would have changed the result significantly. I think Trump’s voters were really keen on voting.”

Harris got a late start, announcing her campaign for presidency on July 21. Giving her just over three months to campaign. Trump had been planning his campaign since his loss to Biden in 2020.

“She had an amazing turnaround when I don’t think Biden would have won either. I think she made it a race where it wouldn’t have even remotely been a race with Biden,” Morgan added.

The podcast appearances worked to humanize the runners and allow them further airtime to get their policies across, which very well could have helped swing voters take a solid stance, but no statistics have come out validating that the podcast appearances aided either candidate in the polls.